The Dog Ate Fairfield's Homework: They Don't Know the Case Number of Their Apparent Pending Issue With a Federal Agency

This is another one of those occasions where we really hope Fairfield City Schools is lying.  If they are telling the truth, then the facts are probably worse than a lie!

Last week, we brought you a story about a records request that a citizen had submitted, but Fairfield City Schools had refused to fill.  You can read that blog entry here.

In summary, both our group and a private citizen were seeking copies of records provided by the district to the United States Justice Department, and alluded to in this May 2016 e-mail between a staffer and the current superintendent:

Fairfield City Schools is saying it won't provide the same documents requested by the United States Department of Justice based on the following two portions of the Ohio Revised Code:

(1) "Public record" means records kept by any public office, including, but not limited to, state, county, city, village, township, and school district units, and records pertaining to the delivery of educational services by an alternative school in this state kept by the nonprofit or for-profit entity operating the alternative school pursuant to section 3313.533 of the Revised Code. "Public record" does not mean any of the following:

(4) "Trial preparation record" means any record that contains information that is specifically compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or in defense of, a civil or criminal action or proceeding, including the independent thought processes and personal trial preparation of an attorney.

So what we interpret to be Fairfield's position here is that the district won't provide for public review the same documents it was working to give to the DOJ in May 2016 because the papers in question involve a "trial preparation record" of some kind. 

We wrote an e-mail to Superintendent Billy Smith, seeking clarification:

Our position is simply this:

Unless Fairfield City Schools is indeed in a trial of some kind with the United States Department of Justice, then the documents the district provided that federal agency last year are public records that the community has a right to see.

Mr. Smith graciously responded that he stood by the refusal of the district's custodian of records to turn over the documents we requested.  Our group then asked for a case number of the trial that is/was/may/may not be apparently pending between the US Department of Justice and Fairfield City Schools.  Here was his reply to our request for that case number:

In other words, the dog at Fairfield's homework.  How could an organization be staring down the barrel of a trial or some other sort of date with destiny with a federal agency, but not know the case number?  It's astounding really.

We'll keep you posted on whatever happens next.